


Six For Gold

by PolyPairings



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: And Sad Feelings While Replaying Halo Reach Again, Based Off Of A Nursery Rhyme, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Game: Halo: Reach, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Noble Six, Halo Reach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25928455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolyPairings/pseuds/PolyPairings
Summary: I replayed Halo Reach again today, and I got sad. I wanted to do something to kind of pay my respects to Noble Team and show my own take on Noble Six. I was also looking for a title for a different drabble idea I thought of involving Noble Six, and found the nursery rhyme "One For Sorrow". The lyrics spoke to me, and I wrote this. It's kinda like poetry, but I'm not sure it officially counts as poetry. Enjoy.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33





	Six For Gold

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who are wondering about my 'The Arbiter, The Medic, and Inter-Species Relationships' series, that is not on hold or anything like that. I just had some inspiration and wrote this. I will continue with that until I finish it.

_One For Sorrow_

Thom is gone, and he'll never be replaced.

But there's a new number six.

They call themself Six, too, and each time their name is said is a reminder of who used to be Six.

Their very presence triggers memories of laughter and smiles and things going wrong. Of explosions and dirt and blood.

Thom is gone, and he's been replaced.

* * *

_Two For Joy_

The new Six isn't Thom.

It isn't Thom who taps rhythms with their foot when they're idle. Jorge concentrates on them to distract himself from the burning and destruction of his home.

It isn't Thom who laughs and snorts at Emile's wisecracks. He can hear them, even though they're sometimes as quiet as huffs of air.

It isn't Thom who talks back to Jun when he rambles on the comms late at night to get the ghosts out of his head. Jun never hears a complaint about a crick in the neck from falling asleep with a helmet on.

It isn't Thom who steals the secret stash of chocolate puddings that a man who dared to be sexist to Kat was bragging about. She finds them on her bunk, squirreled away behind her pillows.

It isn't Thom who edits and organizes reports in a ready-to-send list when Carter falls asleep while doing them. He wakes up with a blanket over his shoulders and his scatter of papers and data pads moved into neat stacks and piles.

The new Six isn't Thom, but they don't have to be.

* * *

_Three For A Girl_

Sára goes with them when they leave the Visegrad Relay. She sits across from Jorge in the Falcon and doesn't speak on the way back to base.

Carter and Jorge are too far away to hear over the motor when Six mutes their comms and hums for her.

When she starts crying, they hold her hand. They say nothing. There is nothing to say.

* * *

_Four For A Boy_

The young trooper hiding behind the barrier from the Hunters is only seventeen.

With Humanity's desperation, the recruitment age has lowered.

The boy hears the screams from his comrades, hears the gunfire. He shoots at the monsters with them, knowing he's powerless to stop them.

He runs out of bullets, and is too afraid to join in the joy at the arrival of the Spartans, who bring backup and shotguns and grenades.

The Spartan notices him while their partner in aqua tells the plan to his surviving CO.

His hands shake, they shake too much to reload his gun, his safety blanket and his tool for survival.

Hands too gentle to belong to a behemoth in titanium armor pulls it from his and reloads it in mere seconds.

The boy's hands shake less when it's returned to him and the heavy hand that lays on his shoulder for a moment makes him take deeper breaths.

The Spartan and their kindness is the last thing the boy thinks of before his side of a Falcon is hit directly with a hot ball of plasma.

* * *

_Five For Silver_

Their knife was once true silver, before the blood.

Noble Team helps them remember this.

Six has killed many with their knife. A large amount of those were Humans.

The blade still looks silver, but Six knows if it were cleaned and sharpened, it would bleed.

Blood rust has stained their blade and stained their hands and their soul.

Noble Team makes Six forget the ever-present blood soaked upon them. Noble Team makes the knife silver.

* * *

_Six For Gold_

The Covenant call the Spartans demons.

They call the ODSTs imps, and marines with helmets and visors implings.

When Spartans fight, their shields wreath them in gold.

To Humans, they are wreathed in the holy light of retribution and justice. They are clothed in the work and sweat of Humans fighting for existence. They fight with weapons of vengeance and revenge.

To the Covenant, the golden plumes of Hellfire accompanies them everywhere they go.

* * *

_Seven For A Secret, Never To Be Told_

Jun will live. He will be rescued with Dr. Halsey, and he'll live.

Noble will be remembered.

Six won't. Six's name, their deeds, their body, their whole person will be folded back into ONI's dirty laundry. They'll disappear, just another one of ONI's secrets.

In 255x, a monument of Noble Team is erected. Five figures, standing tall into the dark night. There is no sixth statue.

The numbers carved near the bottom corner of one of the smooth sides of the base are almost indistinguishable. B312 is only a letter and a set of numbers. It has no meaning. It has no tale to tell. It is a code for the life of a living shadow, melted from the light of knowledge and recessed in the mind of only one, never to be uttered.

* * *

_Eight For A Wish_

Carter stops Six, before they jump out of the Pelican.

"Six."

He tears the tags off his neck, two pairs in his hand rather than one, which he hands to them.

The tags are taken and stashed securely on their person.

"That AI chose you...She made the right choice."

Carter just wants to sleep, wants the pain to stop. He wants his team alive and together. 

Instead, he survives as long as he can so the remnants of it have a chance.

And when the Scarab gets in their way, he knows what to do.

"You're on your own, Noble...Carter out."

He wishes for his remaining family's safety with his last thought.

* * *

_Nine For A Kiss_

Six watches the halcyon-class cruiser escape Reach's atmosphere. The coughs of their presumably dead brother brings them to him.

Six kneels in front of Emile and removes his helmet for him when he fails to do so.

They hold their brother's hand as he tells them of what he remembers of his mothers.

His mama would read him a bedtime story. Emile looks over at the Elite he took down with him.

"I guess I made my own, huh?"

His mama would read him a bedtime story, and tuck him in. His mom would kiss him goodnight.

The night the Covenant invaded his colony, his mom kissed his forehead and told him to run as his mama screamed from the next room.

Emile tells his sibling to take his kukri and his tags.

"Put some bastards to sleep for me, will ya?"

As Emile's eyes close, and his breathing reaches its shallowest, Six kisses their brother on the top of his head and tells him goodnight.

His dog tags are added to Jorge's and Kat's and Carter's.

Six vows to send as many Covenant to the eternal sleep as they can before they join it themself.

* * *

_Ten For A Bird You Must Not Miss_

Part of Six wants to scream and rage for the Pillar of Autumn.

They still live on this world reduced to a graveyard.

A part of Six wishes they had gotten on the Autumn even after Emile had been stabbed through with an energy sword.

The Pillar of Autumn would not have left the atmosphere, but at least they wouldn't have to die alone.

The ship will fly like a bird, a sparrow attempting desperately to outrun a hawk.

Six will remain the mouse stuck on the ground, fighting its inevitable doom.

* * *

_Eleven Is Worse_

Six thought dying was the worst thing.

Then they met Noble Team, and now the worst has truly come to pass.

Six has lost their team, their family.

When they leave the Azsod Shipyard, they search out their brethren, their kin.

Every Human they find is dead.

They find no trace of Jun, not a mention, not a whisper.

Noble Six is no longer Noble. 

Their family was Spartan. Spartans never die.

And yet they had.

* * *

_Twelve For A Dastardly Curse_

Noble Six is cursed.

The curse of the lone wolf.

Every family they've had has died.

Their parents are dead.

Noble is dead.

"That lone wolf stuff stays behind."

What is a wolf without its pack?

They find their answer in the endless waves of enemies they fell.

They find their answer in the bite of energy swords through their flesh.

They find their answer, is...death.


End file.
